I made up mind that I would not find Rum Extract at Wholefoods. I needed it for a Eggnog poundcake I am baking for Christmas. Something’s happened–and I stress happened, in fact, long ago, with desserts. They’ve had sex together and have bred so many different hybrids. Most of them fun hybrids. Eggnog pound cake is just one example.
And whoever heard of rum extract? Well, I was introduced to it. My love hate relationship with Wholefoods is more like in Will I or Won’t I with a unrequited couple. I’m scared when I go in there. So I rarely go in there.

But this time, I went in. and of course didn’t find the rum extract. Just Vanilla extract. The best kinds, as you can imagine. So I gave up. And let me tell you: giving up can feel so good. No more chains of expectation squeezing. Your done for. Good. Hallelujah.

So I went to another grocery store. The cheaper one; the one right around the corner from my apartment building. It was there I found the rum extract. I picked up and laughed. Giving up taught me that, either way, I feel like a winner.

And stupendous, come to think of it, were not for insisting I floss during moments of enlightenment. Or…taking a dump. Although the  relief factor is breif, so is the illuminating of the mind.

I think the cruelest thing that I can do to my spouse is to let them forget their winter cap. I can see it on the couch while he goes around grabbing things, in a hurry, as usual, as he heads out the door, into the clear but cold New York day.
Why can’t I just pick up the item, hand it to them, expect a thank you and be done with it? I think its the constant threat of Alzheimers. Spouses everywhere, are spouting jokes about this disease, in the hopes of that this will warding it away.

Shame on them.

Even more shame on me. I should be nicer, especially if it turns they will end up with it.
I’d want someone to remind me to take my cap before I head out into this cold world.

Aunt Maisie knows, even though she has Alzheimer’s. It’s so bad she thinks her name is Alzheimer’s. She knows this, she says. “That much I know,” she says.And she cries in fear because of it. Sometimes knowing your name is a scary as forgetting it, we tell her. We comfort her, like a little girl on the first day of school.

I wouldn’t watch..but I watched it with you.  It’s you. You are the ratings hit for me.

What is it about television shows, in which being able to predict them makes me not want to watch them?

Can I be really and truly surprised and brought to new awareness with something from television?

I mean, I know the basics, their simple circuitry. It’s the blinking that gets me.

I know I could find out. But I love just staring at them, trying to predict which lights will blink next. I am rarey right. My favorite song is called Oh Christmas lights. They last longer than the tree, I find. I’ve had my lights for over four years. Some work, some don’t

But they remain unpredicable.

It’s when I’m picking up a lot of things off the floor: icicles, pine needles, old flint from really old tree baubles. I could use a vacuum, I know  but I find it satisfying to reach stay here, crawl here, or just lie here. Christmas means something to me. It means the little things. It means cleaning up things.

Anytime I’m down here, things look manageable, smaller, happier. It really is  Merry Christmastime!

I want to speak to a cute boy. Ask him questions. Then have him take his clothes off. Then ask him more questions. And soon as I think of this plan, I don’t want to do it. There’s something missing.
Ah, I know: I’m not really listening to his answers.What if I really, really listened to his answers. With his clothes on?
What then?

We were talking, drinking at our favorite restaurant, just like all the other times.
We got around to talking about kids and she said she “I think I would make a great mom.” Right? There wasn’t a “Right” at the end of her declaration but somewhere, and this comes from the communication between best friends where you can feel the underlying tow something they needed.
She needed me to agree with her, that she would be a great mom.
But I shook my head and said no.
She asked why not.
And so I told her. I gave her examples. How easily she gets pissed at the smallest things and that’s all kids are: small things, handling small things, presenting small things and all of them would do undo her.
She got so mad at me she left the restaurant, without paying. It was my birthday dinner. We haven’t spoken in weeks.
I feel bad. But I feel its true. It was the only time I ever felt authentic and it backfired in my face. Why couldn’t I just go along with things the way I’d done these last few decades. It would have cost nothing. Certainly not our friendship.